Imagine the kind of BS bird-watchers are fighting over. Is Bullock´s Oriole really the same species as the Baltimore Oriole, or are they distinct? The American Ornithological Union lumped them together in 1983, but split them apart again in 1995.
Recent research (2020 - what else?) shows that the splitters (and hence the bird-watchers, who never liked AOU´s 1983 decision) were right. The "hybrid zone" between the two blackbirds (of course it´s blackbirds) has been shrinking since the 1950´s, presumably because the hybridization is a dead-end for these particular populations.
Of course, if you define "species" in some different way (see: bovid research), I´m sure you can split the orioles into an additional 10 species, but who cares? The rest of the world wants to know what Joe Biden proposes to do about the ice cream situation (not to mention Beijing´s hybrid warfare), not some icterid hybridization conundrum in Nebraska...
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